The Los Angeles Ecovillage was launched over 2 decades ago when its founders looked to the neighborhood for inspiration. "The way in which we think about making an urban ecovillage, we have to ask ourselves the questions, 'what are the problems in your neighborhood with air, soil and water'", explains co-founder Lois Arkin. "And for us, in the beginning, it was discovering that the children in our neighborhood had 20% less lung capacity than children in other neighborhoods. So what could we do, we could stop driving."